They Called Him Monster
by Foreverfirstloves
Summary: "Years passed slowly, each one dragging on endlessly by the hour, and Subject #21051 had forgotten that he had ever been anything else. They called him vampire; they called him demon. They called him Monster." A caged creature. A dying girl. An unlikely bond. Delena AU


**Random One-shot for ya'll!**

**This doesn't really follow the show's rules much, so ignore season 6 and all the medical stuff about vampire blood lol.**

**Other than that, I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

The Monster had a name once.

_Damon_.

He had been called Damon, back when he was still human and not yet of the damned.

A little blood down his throat; a quick death...that was all it had taken to turn him into a demon of the night.

But even still; as the veins beneath his eyes darkened and crawled up to his corneas like spider webs and a thirst unlike anything he'd ever experienced scorched his throat with a demand to be quenched, he had been _someone_.

Standing and breathing, somehow, despite the fact that his heart had stopped and fangs had ripped down through his gums.

He had still been, in a way, living. He had still been Damon Salvatore.

Until he wasn't.

* * *

The night was a clear memory, when he had been lured out by a bleeding body, and shot with something strong enough to incapacitate the supernatural abilities he had come to possess after his transition.

He'd dropped to the cold ground as if he had been commanded to do so.

They had stepped from the shadows as his consciousness left him, the writing on their white lab coats the last thing his brain had comprehended before welcoming a dark thicker than sleep.

_St. Augustine's Research Institution_.

* * *

The pain came when he awoke strapped to a metal table, and it did not end.

Scalpels and needles and knives and surgical tools and too many humans standing over him, talking in clinical voices over which of his organs to take samples from; how much blood to draw, how deep of an incision to make...until the hum of their words blurred together into nothing but raw agony.

He had screamed. He had begged for it to stop; had demanded answers as to why this was happening to him.

And he was ignored.

Day after day; week after week.

Until he was no longer a someone. No longer himself. No longer Damon.

Subject #21051.

That was what he was now. A number on a chart; a body in a cell.

* * *

The cage they kept him in was both prison and sanctuary.

Though he had attempted many times, he had found no escape from the jail of his bars, but at least behind them, he was offered a reprieve from the torture.

He was returned to this place, once the humans in their labs had finished with him, drugged up and left to heal his mangled body with only a few drops of blood for sustenance.

Just enough to keep him alive, to do it all over again the next day.

After a few weeks had passed, he learned to mark time with these intervals.

He was retrieved at the same time each morning, returned to the cell at the same time each evening; given the small cup of blood and left alone...all in routine.

And in the late night, when there was nothing but a glowing alarm button across from his cell for company, he found a new way to pass the hours.

With the sounds of a baby wailing from somewhere above him.

For weeks, for months, like clockwork, an infant's cry would echo from some distance, and sometimes, he let his tears fall with it.

Until eventually, even those cries stopped, and he was left alone once more to his misery.

* * *

Years passed slowly, each one dragging on endlessly by the hour, and Subject #21051 had forgotten that he had ever been anything else.

They called him vampire; they called him demon.

They called him Monster.

And the Monster was no more than a shell of a life; physical functions all in working order, because no matter how many times it was torn apart, his body refused to let him die.

But inside...he was as hollow as an empty grave.

* * *

The torture was no longer a daily event.

The urgency in which the humans in the labs had first began their work with had dulled into a mindless motion, only bringing him out of his prison once a week and the abuse hardly varied.

Blood is what they wanted from him now.

Routinely.

Sometimes, without any seeming rhythm, he would be taken to the lab on an unscheduled day, and when that happened, it was almost a certainty that he was going to be cut into and that something would be removed.

A liver, a kidney, a piece of his heart, half a lung...whatever they took from him always grew back, ready to be harvested again and again.

To what purpose, he still did not know.

* * *

It was late when he heard the familiar rattling of the door at the hall's end come open.

So attuned to the sound now, the Monster could only guess that he was about to have a miserable night.

Fear no longer raced through his body at the thought.

He had endured too much to be surprised by anything awaiting him...or so he thought.

Because as it would happen, what his eyes fell upon was nothing he would have ever expected.

Instead of a rush of humans in white coats coming to tranquilize him, there stood a child, no older than ten.

A small girl with big brown eyes and hair so short it barely reached her shoulders.

She was in loose clothes and even in the distance between them, the Monster could feel the warmth of her blood.

"Hello."

Her voice was soft; barely above a whisper, and it was so odd, that someone was addressing him.

The Monster sat up from where he lay on the stone floor and stared at this small human curiously.

Who was she? Why was she here? And could he get her close enough to sink his teeth into the pulsing vein in her neck.

"Hello," she said again, and it took a few swallows for the creature to make sound come from his throat.

"Who are you?" he asked, the raspiness of his voice unsurprising.

When was the last time he'd used it for something other than screaming?

"I'm Elena," the little girl responded, her head crooking curiously, "Why are you locked up in here?"

The Monster stood slowly and moved toward the bars with equal caution.

The girl did not back away, but she was still outside his reach, even if he slipped a hand through the bars.

"I do not know," he answered her question, then asked one of his own, "How did you get in here?"

A little color crept up the girl's face as she blushed, and the rush of the blood set a fire in the Monster's throat.

God, he was so starved.

"I live in the house upstairs. Daddy says I am not to play in the basement. This is where he does his work. But he left the door unlocked and I wanted to see where Daddy works."

Oh. The foolish, brave child.

"Your Dad works here," the Monster tried to soften his voice, "With me. Would you like to see?"

A light brightened in the girl's eyes as she nodded and took a step closer to the cell.

Reaching through the bars, the creature extended his hand to her.

She stepped closer; close enough that he could reach her.

The Monster breathed deeply, his mouth watering for what his body craved and his fangs began to protrude...until her scent hit his nose.

Holy _hell_.

The child was sick...maybe even dying.

* * *

She touched his palm and he jerked back so quickly he stumbled and fell onto the ground.

The large brown eyes watched him, no fear in their depths, and he understood the emptiness they held.

This child was no stranger to pain.

"Leave," he hissed at her and when she remained frozen in place he let out a growl that was anything but human, "LEAVE THIS PLACE!"

Because he could not stand to hurt her.

He could not take the life of something who's eyes held such agony beyond their years.

His heart broke for her, and for himself...and she stood there, watching him fall apart.

Then, they came.

The grown humans in white coats that had never once met his gaze as they ripped him apart.

Voices stricken with fear and concern filled the halls, until they spotted the girl.

The man in front rushed forward and hit the red glowing button before yanking the child away from the Monster's cage.

As a piercing alarm sounded through the hall, shutters along the cage's ceiling peeled away and pure sunlight encased the room.

The Monster shrank back into what little shadows remained to keep from being scalded.

From his cowering position, he heard the man's voice, scolding the girl, "Elena! I've told you to never come down here! What were you thinking?!"

Though his words were harsh, his hands on her were gentle.

She apologized several times before her father pulled her close in a hug and quickly sent her away with one of the others.

Several minutes passed, white coats sweeping through the halls, before the alarm was finally silenced and the shutters closed, once more casting the room into blissful darkness.

It was only then, in the aftermath of the event, that the father bothered to throw a glance toward the cage.

The Monster met his eyes and the man visibly shivered before walking back the way he had come.

* * *

"You should not be here," his voice shook, more with surprise than anything else.

A tiny smile was the only response he was given.

It would seem that the little human girl had a death wish bigger than his own.

Less than a week had passed and yet she had returned, to this place, where she knew she was forbidden.

He could not find the logic in her thinking.

"Daddy is gone today," the girl stated, and shrugged off a small pack that had been strapped over her shoulders, "And I wanted to give you something."

The Monster blinked, feeling suspicious as she knelt down on the cold stone flooring and unzipped the pack.

Food was taken out of it, by those small fragile hands; fruit, chips, a sandwich.

"You looked hungry," the child explained herself, and pushed the items through the slot at the bottom of the cage door.

Maybe this was some sort of trick.

Maybe the food was poisoned.

The Monster found that it mattered very little to him.

Death would be welcomed at this point.

He took what she offered him, and for the first time in so many years, he ate.

* * *

The compassion of the human girl, Elena, continued to surprise him.

Weekly, she would appear with food, always the same few items that she managed to sneak from above when her father was away.

She was never caught, and he wondered at who was meant to be keeping an eye on her.

And as the weeks turned into months, she began to linger after the Monster had his meal, talking to him.

She told him of her mother's death giving birth to her.

Of how, months later, the doctors had discovered her own illnesses.

Leukemia, fast and fatal.

Infection following after the chemotherapy had weakened her immune system, leading to system failures in some of her major organs.

Surgeries, a lot of them, to save her life.

She told him how her father, the good doctor in a white lab coat, had desperately searched until he found a treatment that was now healing her.

Elena did not know the details of her father's experiments, but the Monster did.

As it would turn out, the Augustine scientist had not brought him here for the mere purpose of being tortured after all, but to be harvested.

Years of his life taken, to give more to hers.

The blood, the organs...they were being used for transplants.

He had known that vampire blood contained healing properties...he just hadn't realized the extent of it.

The new knowledge made him want to hate the child before him.

For his pain, for his loss. But he could not.

Because she was good; kind enough to care for a Monster in a cage.

Perhaps she deserved life more than he did.

* * *

Time passed faster when Elena was with him, her small voice growing animated with story after story of her human life.

School work, friends, treatments, all in routine.

He knew all the names of the ones she loved most, the ones she admired, the ones she disliked.

He learned her favorite foods, what she found funny, and what made her angry.

These tidbits of information became a lifeline; a way to fill the void that would return the moment she was gone.

Elena became his obsession.

* * *

In the years that followed the revelation of his true purpose, Subject #21051 surrendered every ounce of fight in his body.

He allowed himself to be drugged, taken, operated on.

The weeks where more pain was required of him scared him for a different reason now.

What had happened to Elena that she needed so much?

Had she fallen more ill?

Had the disease worsened?

He knew better than to ask, and eventually, she would return to him, lunch in hand.

It was a relief each time, to see her safe, and the Monster knew he had found a reason for his heart to continue beating.

He awaited his company eagerly most days, wondering if this would be the hour he would see her again.

It had become easier, as Elena grew older, for the visits to his cage to become more frequent; almost weekly now.

Though it wasn't until after hearing cheers from a party upstairs one evening that the Monster realized his little human girl was hardly that anymore.

* * *

_Fourteen._

* * *

Elena flourished each year, needing less and less of what only his body could offer, but he was grateful for it.

Her hair was growing long and thick, her skin appearing less translucent, and her cheeks had lost their gauntness.

In health, she was radiant, and his heart was eased with the knowledge that his sacrifice was the reason behind it.

* * *

_Fifteen._

* * *

"Won't you ever tell me your name?" she asked of him, late one night.

She was sitting cross legged by the cage door, as she always did, facing him.

The Monster smiled sadly, "It has been so long since I have used it that it no longer belongs to me."

A light flickered in her brown eyes, and she reached for the bag she had brought with her.

"I expected you to refuse again," she accused with a soft glance, "Which is why I went looking for this."

In her hand, a file appeared, the folder sealed shut, but he recognized the number on the front.

The same one outside of his cell.

The same one he had been called for so many years now.

"Elena," the Monster warned, "Where did you get that?"

She smiled mischievously, "Father's office. I found the key to his cabinet. Just the one though. None for the cage down here."

"I have told you not to waste time looking for it," he scolded, "Your father will not leave it out to be found and if he were to discover that you have been speaking to me, I fear what he will do to us both."

That sweet laugh left her and the Monster found it impossible to be annoyed.

"I have been coming down here for years now and he hasn't noticed. He doesn't want me to die, like my mother, so he concerns himself so much with keeping me alive that he hardly notices the way in which I live. He doesn't really care about that."

"He loves you."

"He loves that I'm his success," she argued, "He's more my doctor than my parent and I doubt that will ever change...but that's besides the point," she moved a little closer with the file, "I want to know what this says. Don't you?"

No.

Because he already knew, and she did not.

"Put it back, Elena," the Monster said forcefully, "Put it back where you found it and forget about it."

That stubborn set of her jaw, "Why?"

Because he could not bear for her to know his sufferings...that it was all for her.

"Some seals are better left unbroken."

She stared at him, weighing his words, until finally letting out a deep sigh.

"Then please, at least tell me your name."

* * *

_Sixteen_.

* * *

"Damon?"

The Monster looked up to a heavenly sight.

A blue dress that hugged smooth curves and the color matched her skin perfectly.

That dark hair was curled and fell around her face like a crown of waterfalls.

She was an angel, and she did not belong here.

"You're supposed to be dancing the night away," he reminds her with a pointed look, standing to his feet.

Elena smiles that brilliant smile of hers and moves right up to the cage door, "I got bored."

"Bored at prom?" he arched a brow, "For someone who was not supposed to live to see high school, you sure are flippant about the milestones it offers."

She shrugged and reached a hand through the bar.

The Monster placed his palm against hers, his skin tingling where they met.

Elena interlaced their fingers, holding him firmly, "I wanted to see you. My father is out and isn't expecting me back for hours. How often do we get opportunities like this?"

He exhaled slowly, wanting nothing more than to spend all night with her company, but knowing it would be selfish.

She should be out living her life.

"This night is for you to spend with your friends. Your date. To be young and have fun."

Elena rolled her eyes, "I don't want to be with them. I have to pretend too much."

"Pretend?"

"To care," she admitted, "About all the mediocre problems they have. That things like late homework, parties, and hot football players matter to me."

He squeezed her hand, "They should matter."

"They don't. Not when it's all material and temporary. And they don't get that I can't be that way. Care about those things...but you understand. You always understand."

"I understand it is hard," he nodded, "To live mundane life when you've stared death in the face. But there is more out there for you, Elena. Years and years for you to find what matters to you. So enjoy the mediocracy. Enjoy not having to worry about dying tonight. Spend tonight with those who care about you."

Another smile, this one smaller, but still sincere as her fingers tightened around his own.

"I am."

* * *

_Seventeen_.

* * *

"Damon!"

The Monster sat up in his cell, pulled abruptly from his unconsciousness.

It was dark, more so than usual in the dreary space around him, but the figure moving through the hall to his cell did not seem to mind.

"Damon, wake up!"

Her voice was a hurried whisper.

"Elena?" He pulled himself from the ground, feeling his way to the cage door, where his sight finally adjusted.

"I was so worried for you! Are you alright? It can not be morning yet. Why are you down here?"

The words poured out of him in a hurry, after the fear of the day prior.

They lab coats had come for him, nearly draining him dry this time and he had lost consciousness.

Perhaps this was a dream?

"I found it!" The sweet voice returned, and a hand touched his over the metal bars.

The warmth that spread through him was very real.

"Found what?" he shook his head, trying to focus.

Instead of an answer, there was a swift movement, followed by short metal clanks.

"Elena, what are you-"

The cage door opened.

* * *

He had often dreamed, in those early years, of what freedom would feel like.

To be able to reclaim the life that had been taken from him and to walk away from the hell that awaited each day.

However, the moment that door swung open, the Monster found himself unable to run.

It was no longer freedom he craved, though the unlocking of his cage did answer the single prayer he had.

With careful movements he reached out in the darkness, until she was beneath his hands.

"Damon," the name he had once known was sighed in relief, and suddenly a body was enfolding against his own, a warm forehead pressing itself into his chest.

Elena was in the cage with him now and she held him, encaptured him, froze him entirely.

This was no mere brush of the fingertips, as the two had sometimes shared in the past, but an intimate connection with the entirety of their beings.

"Elena," he spoke her name like a prayer, holding the fragile human body to him with arms that felt unworthy, and buried his nose into her soft hair.

She overwhelmed him, the scent of her blood, shampoo, and illness burning through his nose in the most familiar way, though never quite so encompassing.

"I can't believe this is real," he murmured as she lightened her grip around him.

Elena's head leaned back to look up at him, and in the dimness, he could see tears shining in those beautiful eyes of hers.

"I can't either...but we don't have much time. My father will be awake in a few hours and you have to be far away from this place. I'm getting you out of here."  
He could only stare at her, and like a flash, he saw their years together before his eyes.

The brave child who fed a Monster. The fearless girl who became his friend. The teenager who let him live through her life. The young woman who gave him a name again.

Elena, who had done it all while fighting each day for her own survival.

His cage had a door to be unlocked.

Hers did not.

And if her heart did not beat, he would not truly be free.

* * *

"You have to go now!" she repeated, though her hands moved up to his face, cupping his cheeks as if she did not want him to disappear, "While you still can."

Her touch was the greatest comfort he had ever known, and he would sooner die than leave the embrace in which she held him now.

"If I go," he whispered, "We shall never see each other again."

A tear slipped from her eye, following the path of pain down her cheek to trembling lips.

"I know," she swallowed thickly, "But I read the file, Damon. I finally opened it. I know what you are. I know what they've done to you...what they've done to us. My own father! I'm so sorry."

"They saved you," he lifted a hand to catch the next tear as it fell, "Never regret that."

Her head shook and the trembling grew worse, "They didn't. I had to have a transfusion yesterday and I heard the other doctors talking with my dad. I'm still dying, Damon. And my father will keep hurting you to postpone the inevitable, so please! You have to go."

A pit grew in his stomach as her words hit him.

Dying?

No...not his Elena…

"I thought I was curing you," he stepped back to look at her fully, "That the treatments were helping?"

"They were," she assured him, "I mean, they are. They help. But there is no _cure_. Don't you get it? The moment the treatments stop, the disease will shut my body down. You will spend my entire life in this cell, being torn apart over and over until I finally die. I won't let that happen! It's my turn to save you."

But she already had saved him. Didn't she realize that?

He had been hollow as a human.

Damned as a vampire.

A victim as a captive.

She was the only purpose he had ever had; the only good he had ever known.

* * *

"I won't leave you here to die," he decided, and Elena's eyes went wide, "You can't be serious?! They're going to keep hurting you! You have to run! _Now_!"

She pulled away from him, grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the door.

"Come _on_! Run! _Please_!"

He hated what he had to do, but this was her only chance.

They were just outside the cage now, and she was fighting him with ferocity.

The Monster grabbed her shoulders and stilled her as best he could, "Elena. Listen to me."

She struggled, and he repeated the words until she calmed, "What?"

He reached up and brushed a piece of her hair from her face, "I can't live if you're dying. I'm not leaving you. Ever. You can have any part of me you need, for as long as you need it. I don't care."

Her face scrunched up as she fought back more tears and frustration, "How can you say that? After what they've done to you?! What they will keep doing!"

He smiled and leaned down.

She froze as he pressed his lips to her forehead and breathed her in.

"Because I love you."

His hand found the glowing button on the wall.

She cursed him as the alarm screamed throughout the hall, and it was only seconds until he heard voices nearing the stairs above.

"Goodbye, Elena."

He let her go and stepped back into the cage, shutting the door firmly behind him.

* * *

It was hours after they came that the Monster let the pain encompass him.

The truth, that he would never see the only thing that made his life worth living ever again was almost too much to bear.

But he would bear it for her.

The humans had descended the stairs in a fury and found her in tears outside of his cage.

She fought when they tried to drag her away.

She kicked and screamed and scared the hell out of them, resisting until she collapsed.

They would never know the complete truth, but the fear in her father's eyes spoke volumes.

Elena would never be allowed to return.

However, she would live.

As long as they came for him, bled him, cut him apart, he would know she was alive and that would have to be enough.

* * *

The door above opened some time later, and the Monster prepared himself for the drugs.

Surely Elena would need something, after her episode last night.

He was prepared to give all.

However, what came for him was not the usual mirage of doctors.

Nor was it his sweet, fragile human.

No...what came from the stairs moved with all the fluidity of the shadows themselves, and smelled strongly of blood.

Fresh blood.

Fangs protruded from his mouth as the scent hit him, though the thirst was soon forgotten as the figure drew closer.

"Elena?"

Her name broke on his lips as she smiled widely, sharp incisors gleaming.

This was impossible.

* * *

Hands, more pale than what they should be, reached to the cage's bars and pulled.

The metal gave way, parting as if it were nothing more than streamers made of paper.

"Elena," he said her name again, taking a small step forward, "What have you done?"

A pink tongue slipped from her mouth, swirling against the red stain on her lips.

"It's like you said," her voice was different; stronger, "I can't live if you're dying. They've been killing you for years to save me and last night it was finally too late."

Revelation hit him like a tidal wave, "You died."  
She was in front of him now, staring at him through new eyes, "I was already dead. We both were...and now they all are too."

For the first time in years, a flame of hope flickered in the Monster's chest, "Dead...all of them?"

"Everyone in the house," she frowned a little, "I didn't want it to happen, but when I...woke up...they knew what I'd become. They were going to kill me and my father was going to let them. He called me a monster," her head shook, then she took his hands, " I did what I had to do...and now we're both free."

Free. Was this really possible?

"Damon...it's still dark. We can leave here. Together."

Damon. That had been his name once, before he had been taken.

Before he had been turned into a number in a cell.

Before his life had changed forever.

"Yes," Damon spoke, looking down into the face of the only person he had ever loved.

In her eyes, he found himself again.

"We are free."

Hand in hand, they left the cage behind.

* * *

She led him through the hall and up the far staircase.

Damon saw, for the first time, the home she had claimed, which was now streaked with bodies and blood.

His thirst returned, but he ignored it easily as she pulled him to the door.

There would be plenty of time to deal with that later.

Years, in fact, where they could run and hunt and live to their heart's content.

Because there was nothing left to stop them.

Elena opened the door and fresh air poured in from the night.

His eyes stung a little; it had been too long since he had breathed so easily.

Elena smiled at him and he tightened his grip on her palm.

Together, they ran.

No more cages.

No more cancer.

No more Monsters.

* * *

Finally, they were free.

* * *

**As usual, can't wait to read your reviews! Thanks for reading! :)**


End file.
